You know, my blog has almost no theme. Other people have themes for
their blogs, a context in which they write. My only theme is 'I think
someone might find this interesting.' If I HAD to label it.
it'd be 1/2 what it's like to live in PNG for people who want to know
and
1/2 what is happening in PNG that is glorifying God. (aka What's God doing).
here's a bit of that:
Today I was recording Matthew, and one of the guys said 'twenty-six
thousand' which sounded VERY English amidst all the non-english stuff,
and so I was wondering, why did that language adopt English numbers.
And then I got this email from translators out in one of the villages we
were able to visit:
(from Catharine M.):
We are discussing traditional counting systems which are very
cumbersome. For instance, the Gapapaiwa for 19 is something like "Two
hands finished and one leg on the side is dead and over to the other
side two plus two" No wonder they have switched to 'English' numbers!
(Most young people do not even know the traditional system above four or
five.)
20 is one man and then you start over with "one man and one, etc." So
100 is five men.
But I just heard today that the creative teachers in Kaninuwa have
developed a new system translating English numbers back into their
language. Zeros are called eggs. So one hundred is "One egg egg". Hmmm.
I wonder if the kids understand the concept of nothing or zero, because
an egg is a something.
---------
Why is that on my blog you might ask?
If you see the education and training of Papua New Guineans as a path
for them to be able to not only READ the Word of God, but to understand
it, teach it, and make disciples on their own... then you start to see
all of it working together so that the PNG people can be responsible for
their own faith.
I see myself as being here to equip them with tools, and see them use
those tools to allow God to change their lives with His Word. We're
putting God's Word in their hands, and making disciples in the
progress... in the hopes that they will also make disciples. We can't do
this work all alone, we need the exponential system to work, and it's an
uphill battle for so many reasons. Yes the above story is interesting
and entertaining.
But if you look deeper you see words like "teachers...
developed....system....language....kids...understand..." and that is
very encouraging because those teachers aren't ex-pats. They are
nationals. They are using creative teaching techniques that THEY
developed, that are culturally appropriate. It's PNGians training the
next PNG generation in PNG appropriate ways.
Very encouraging.
-Chad
